Research Publications

WAN Lei
This article discusses the infamous “Nanhua Incident” in 1932 occurred in Shanghai and the consequent responses of two distinguished scholars in modern China, Hui Shih and Lu Xun, and their attitudes toward it. The two scholars happened to have witnessed the protest movements, and wrote their articles, letters and diaries on the matter. By analyzing the texts of such writings, one can grasp the viewpoints of the two scholars on the Muslim movement and on Islam in China.

Sulaiman bin Abdulrahman al-Dheeb
This work is a scientific study of a number of Thamudic inscriptions, classified as religious prayers, which were spotted in a number of sites in the region of Hail. The purpose of the study is to highlight a social phenomenon practiced by the Thamudic people of Hail back then, namely, the practice of religious invocation to the (Gods) or the Objects of worship. I want to point out that this study is part of a larger project in which I seek to track and publish all Thamudic writings across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia – which surpassed thousands. The inscriptio

Sulaiman bin Abdulrahman al-Dheeb
The settlement of Hail, located in the north of Saudi Arabia, dates back to the Stone Age, and its environment has largely helped in making it a more attractive location than others. Writings known as “Thamudic writings” left by the Hail man - which we would to also refer to as: popular writings, due to their number, spread and content. These writings were in the thousands, and clearly covered all areas of the Arabian Peninsula from north to south going through the central region, and from west to east, but to a limited extent so far, at least in t

The article by Dr Wan Lei, “The First Chinese Travel Record on the Arab World——Commercial and Diplomatic Communications during the Islamic Golden Age” published by King Fasial Center for Research and Islamic Studies in its bulletin, Qiraat (No. 7 Rabi I - II, 1438; December 2016 - January 2017), is composed of three articles, which are all translations and interpretations from official Chinese historical books recording events during the Tang dynasty (618-917 CE). The first is about Du Huan’s Jingxingji [The Travel Record], who was the first Chinese man who travelled the Arab world; the second article is about Jian Dan’s “Guangzhou

Wan Lei
This article explores the earliest Muslim immigration into China during the Tang and Song dynasties. The background of such immigration, along with various Chinese titles to designate Muslims, their communities, and their leaders demonstrate the earliest forms of recognition of the Muslims by the Chinese people. The article focuses on the studies of the Muslim leaders’ duties and their confrontations with the Chinese legal system; to adapt to a new society, a community must undergo acculturation. Finally, the system of Muslim leaders was improved by the succeeding Mongol Yuan dynasty,

Ahmad al-Qushashi was the most dominant Sufi scholar in seventeenth-century Ottoman Hijaz. He is depicted as merciful to other people in many biographical sources and writings, and his support for coffee culture was predicated on his concern for the economic welfare of the inhabitants of the Hijaz, who benefited from the production of coffee. His role in spreading knowledge as far as Indonesia cannot be ignored. Most later renowned Sufis and hadith scholars, to whom some modern historians refer as the proponents of “Islamic revival and reform,” transmitted certificates from Ibrahim al-Kurani (d. 1690) that originated in al-Qushashi’s

The term “Huizu” is the formal name of the Hui–Hui zu (Hui–Hui ethnic group) in contemporary China. It is derived from the Chinese Pinyin transcrip on system, deriving from the pronuncia ons of two separate Chinese characters for the words “Hui” and “zu,” each of which possesses an independent meaning, but which obtain a new meaning when they are combined to form “Huizu” (following the normal pa ern of Chinese word forma on). The former syllable is an abbrevia on of “Hui–Hui,” a term referring to an ethnic group that emerged from the Xiyu (the Western Regions beyond present– day Xinjiang) from the mid&ndas